STOCKHOLM.- What happens in translations between cultures, between languages, between a viewer and an artwork? In The Spiral and the Square. Exercises in Translatability, the works are varied exercises in translatability: Rivane Neuenschwander’s phantom draughtsman translates the visitor’s description of their first love into a portrait on paper. Cildo Meireles’ simple paper bags are translated into a series of volume units. Laura Lima’s living sculpture lends an image to the process of translation as a physical and demanding struggle. Cao Guimarães’ full-length film Ex Isto challenges how history is written by transferring European historical events to the Amazon rainforest.

The Spiral and the Square has its starting point in the Brazilian writer Osman Lins' cult novel Avalovara (1973), but an exhibition that encompasses the meeting of cultures inevitably and obviously will embrace the world, finding its way finally into Swedish art history. The winding themes and structure here echo the novel's structure, in which a mysterious palindrome appears in a square drawn on top of a spiral.

The Spiral and the Square features work by internationally established artists of different generations and with many different expressions. Along side the exhibition Bonniers Konsthall, in collaboration with Södertörn University and Albert Bonniers Publishers, is arranging seminars, performances and screenings in which Brazilian culture take center stage.

Participating artists: Angela Detanico & Rafael Lain; Mauricio Dias & Walter Riedweg; Eugenio Dittborn; Öyvind Fahlström; Cao Guimãraes; Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster; Fredrik Ehlin, Andjeas Ejiksson & Oscar Mangione; Laura Lima; Arto Lindsay; Dora Longo Bahia; Renata Lucas; Raimundas Malašauskas & Marcos Lutyens; Cinthia Marcelle; Rodrigo Matheus; Cildo Meireles; João Modé; Fabio Morais; Rivane Neuenschwander; Natascha Sadr Haghighian; Rirkrit Tiravanija; Haegue Yang.

Curators: The Spiral and the Square is realised by two invited guest curators; Jochen Volz and Daniela Castro. Both residents of Brazil, their practices extend all over the international art world.